


Fever Dreams

by A_Farnese



Series: Penumbra- Missing Scenes [7]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Merlin - Freeform, Sick Arthur, ptsd merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-23 13:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Farnese/pseuds/A_Farnese
Summary: Arthur is sick, and Merlin has cause to wonder if he is any healthier himself.Set after 'A Song for Midwinter'
Series: Penumbra- Missing Scenes [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/228677
Kudos: 28





	Fever Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: 'Merlin' and its characters are not mine. No money is being made from this.

“Get your things. We’re leaving in the morning.”

Merlin blinked back sleep to look at Arthur, who squinted back at him as though he were on the horizon and not sitting in a chair an arm’s length away. He eased himself up and rested a hand against the king’s chest, gently pushing him back onto the pillows while noting the change in symptoms. Arthur still had a fever, was still confused, and still coughed. But Merlin sensed that he was on the upswing of his recovery. After five days of relentless illness, that was enough to allow some of the tension to melt away from Merlin’s shoulders. “Whatever you say. Now go back to sleep.”

Arthur made an unhappy sound. “Lazy,” he muttered before his eyes slid shut.

“You’re the one who’s been lying in bed all week,” Merlin whispered, smiling fondly as he brushed the sweat-dampened hair away from Arthur’s forehead and tugged the blankets back in place.

Behind him, a door opened. “Sire?” a sleepy voice asked.

Merlin glanced over his shoulder. George blinked owlishly about as though he expected to find something amiss. “Everything’s fine. Go back to bed.”

George made a noise of sleepy assent and disappeared into the antechamber where he slept. For a moment, Merlin envied him. Tiresome as he was, George was a loyal servant and had spent every waking moment-- and most of his sleeping ones-- of the past five days within earshot of Merlin, waiting on him in case he was needed to fetch some herb or draught from Gaius’s chambers or pass a bit of news along to Guinevere. He had earned his rest and would sleep soundly.

So too, had Merlin, but sleep was often far away. Now that he was awake it seemed like he would be up for a while. With a yawn, he stood and looked around. The fire was burning low so he stoked it with a few words of magic. His supplies were in disarray, so he straightened them. The candle in the window was burning low, so he grabbed a new one and crossed the room to replace it before it could gutter and cause some frantic guard to spread the false news of the king’s death.

Arthur wasn’t going to die. Not from this fever. He was miserable and confused, but not near death despite the window’s candle and the handful of people who braved the falling snow to stand vigil and pray for his recovery. None of them were out there now. Not in the black hours before dawn; only a few guards were huddled together in their alcoves, wrapped in their warmest cloaks and shivering until the next watch came to relieve them. “You’re the lucky ones. You’re only out there for a few hours,” he muttered. “I’ve been here all this time.”

He lit the new candle, blew the old one out, and tugged it off the candlestick. Drops of melted wax splashed onto his arm. He hissed, barely managing to set the new taper in place before spinning away from the window and slamming against the wall. Pain flared in his back as he pulled at the scars there. More wax spattered onto his hands. They spasmed and dropped the candle. Instead of hearing its dull thud on the floor, he heard the roaring of fire. He stumbled forward, snagging Arthur’s desk with his hip.

The dull ache of the impact woke him from the memories, though not from the sting of the wax as it cooled on his skin. He shuddered and leaned against the desk, spreading his trembling hands over the polished wood to remind himself of where and when he was. Safe. In Camelot. Where no fire burned save for the ones that warmed them all against winter’s chill, where no one would come in the darkness to torment him.

He took a heaving breath, then another, and swallowed hard. His gaze slid around the dim room, searching for something besides the fire to focus on before landing on Arthur’s fevered form. With an eerie intensity, he watched Arthur sleep, watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest and the fleeting expressions on the king’s face until his own breathing finally slowed and his trembling subsided.

“Will this ever be over?” he breathed, already knowing the answer was ‘no’. The nightmares would never go away. The memory of the fire would come roaring back at the slightest reminder; the pain would always be a part of him. Like all the other horrors he had encountered in his life, he would learn to endure them. Face them down every day until the doing of it was something he knew by heart, like breathing or walking. What other choice was there?

Sorting through his medical supplies, he glanced over at Arthur. Save for some incoherent mutterings about horses, the king was asleep and likely to remain so. Merlin gave him a tired smile then set to unwinding the linen bandages from around his wrists. The motion was as familiar to him as his own face, though the sight of the scars always unnerved him, reminders of fire and agony that haunted him still, flickering at the edge of awareness like old ghosts that vanished in daylight and came roaring back in that liminal space between waking and sleep where he could not discern reality from memory from nightmare. Some part of him would always be there on the pyre at Blackheath, gazing up at the stars as the snow fell and the flames closed in around him.

“Merlin?” Arthur’s voice brought him home again. He looked up again and found Arthur blinking owlishly at him from across the room. “Why’re there cats?”

He pursed his lips to keep from laughing. “I don’t know, but I’ll take care of them.”

Arthur sagged against his pillows and pushed his blankets away. “Get them by morning or I’ll…” his voice trailed off as he fell asleep again.

“Or you’ll have my ears boxed, I’m sure,” Merlin said, briefly contemplating filling the king’s chambers with dozens of illusory cats, though he doubted Arthur would remember anything he said this night. “Cats,” he chuckled, shaking his head as he reached for the salve for his wrists. Its coolness eased the sting of the new burns and the ache of the older scars. It smelled like growing things and sweet summer hay, reminding him of life beyond the routines of infirmity and the wintry chill that had soaked into his bones and left him aching so often he sometimes forgot what it was like to feel normal. Had it only been a year since Blackheath? It felt like a lifetime.

He rewrapped his wrists and folded his arms on the table, resting his head on them and wishing he could sleep until spring returned. Winter was necessary, a chance for the world to rest before bursting into unfettered bloom once more; but he hated it all the same. It felt like the time for dying. He nearly had. His mother…

Merlin rubbed his stinging eyes, then stood and made for the chair at Arthur’s bedside. Feverish as he was, Arthur was alive. Within a few days, he would be on his feet again, striding about the castle with his plans for the future, and he would need Merlin again to tell him what was what-- or he would imagine that he needed Merlin for that, though he had inexplicably developed a wealth of good sense in the past few years. Perhaps Arthur wouldn’t need him as much and Merlin could do, well, something else? Though what else there might be for him to do was a mystery. Once the people started calling you ‘king’s prophet’, was there another path for him? Was there another path he wanted to travel?

Was there another path he could travel? As a servant to a king and a tool of the gods, it was his fate to be used as they saw fit and then set aside when he was worn out. It wasn’t a cheerful thought. Winter nights were not meant to inspire such things. They were to be endured like an unpleasant duty, one you hoped you would make it through to find spring waiting for you at the end.

He tugged Arthur’s blankets back into place and rested his fingers on the king’s forehead. The fever was lower. It might break soon. “Not a moment too soon, either. People imagine terrible things when their king is ill.”

Arthur’s only reply was a soft muttering with words too quiet to hear.

Settling back into the chair, Merlin sighed and wished for sleep. These maunderings were the product of an overtired mind. He needed rest and sunlight to clear the cobwebs from his brain; he needed spring to rejuvenate his spirit. He needed his friend to wake up and tousle his hair and mock him for being too serious. He needed the future to be now.

“One thing at a time,” he chided himself. Ask too much of the gods, and they would respond with a deluge or nothing at all. He should keep his expectations simple, and of all the things he wanted then, what he wanted the most was for Arthur to be well again. “I’ll ask for nothing else tonight, then. Except for this. Be well again, Arthur.”


End file.
